Famati´na, a district and mountain range in the Argentine Republic, province of La Rioja, rich in copper; highest summit, the Nevada de Famatina, 19,758 feet high.
Familiar Spirits, demons or evil spirits supposed to be continually within call and at the service of their masters, sometimes under an assumed shape, sometimes attached to a magical ring, or the like, sometimes compelled by magic skill, and sometimes doing voluntary service. We find traces of this belief in all ages and countries, under various forms.
Family, in zoological classification, a group of species more comprehensive than a genus and less so than an order, a family usually containing a number of genera, while an order contains so many families. Family names usually terminate in -ĭdæ (after Latin patronymics, such as Æacĭdæ, sons or descendants of Æacus). In botany it is sometimes used as a synonym of natural order.
Family Compact, the name given to an alliance organized by the Duc de Choiseul, first minister of Louis XV, between the various members of the Bourbon family, then sovereigns of France, Spain, the Two Sicilies, Parma, and Piacenza, mutually to guarantee each other's possessions. It was signed 15th Aug., 1761, and entailed on Spain a war with England.
Famine, an extreme scarcity of food affecting considerable numbers of people at the same time. Its causes are either natural, such as crop failures due to disease or to excessive or deficient rainfall, the effect of these being aggravated when the crop concerned is one on which the population mainly depends; or political and economic, such as war, or defects in the organization of production and distribution. In the Early and Middle Ages famines were frequent; but the rapidity of modern communication and transport made famines rare in Europe, until the conditions caused by the Great War produced
great scarcity in Central Europe. In Ireland the years 1814, 1816, 1822, 1831, 1846 were marked by failure of the potato crop, and in the last-mentioned year the dearth was so great that £10,000,000 were voted by Parliament for relief of the sufferers. India has been the seat of many great famines, which recur at more or less regular intervals; but of late the British officials have been successful in organizing preventive and relief measures, such as improvement in railways and irrigation, the multiplication of industries, and the institution of a famine insurance grant. Amongst the more recent famines are that in North-West India (1837-8), in which above 800,000 perished; that in Bengal and Orissa (1865-6), when about a million perished; that in Bombay, Madras, Mysore (1877); that of 1896-7; and that of 1900 in Bombay, Punjab, &c., perhaps the most serious on record, when the Government spent £10,000,000 in relief. In China a great famine took place in 1877-8, in which over 9 millions are said to have perished; another took place in 1888-9, owing to the overflow of the Yellow River.
Fan, the name of various instruments for exciting a current of air by the agitation of a broad surface. (1) An instrument made of wood or ivory, feathers, thin skin, paper, variously constructed and mounted, and used by ladies to agitate the air and cool the face. As an article of luxury the fan was well known to the Greeks and Romans. Fans are said to have been introduced into England from Italy in the reign of Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth was very fond of them. There is a collection of fans at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. (2) Any contrivance of vanes or flat discs revolving by the aid of machinery, as for winnowing grain, for cooling fluids, urging combustion, or assisting ventilation, is also so called.
Fanar´iots, or Phanariots, the inhabitants of the Greek quarter, or Phanar, in Constantinople, particularly the noble Greek families resident there since the times of the Byzantine emperors. The dragoman or interpreter of the Porte and other high officials used to be taken from their number. They have now mostly lost their influence at Constantinople, and have in many cases transferred themselves to Athens.
Fanat´icism, a term applied more particularly to the extravagance manifested in religious matters by those who allow themselves to be hurried away by their fancy and feelings, to the adoption not only of wild enthusiastic views, but also of inordinate and not infrequently persecuting measures. By an extension of the term it is also sometimes applied to other forms of extravagance.
Fancy, a term approaching imagination in meaning. In its general acceptation it refers both to the forms of the imagination and to the mental faculty which produces them; but it is used frequently for the lighter or more fantastic forms of the imagination, and for the active play of that faculty which produces them. See Imagination.